Peter Schiff Mortgage Bankers Speech Nov/13/06

Interesting comment. If I am to understand it correctly, and follow it to its logical conclusion: 1. Economists have no tools for studying the topics that they're supposed to study, such as asset prices. 2. They are unable to make predictions because doing so would be "speculative." 3. Because we can't know what is going to happen until it happens, we might as well do away with professional economists because they can provide no input of practical (read: forward-looking) use. They can only try to explain why what happened happened. As for the requirement that one have "special, insider information" to have predicted the housing bubble, this is simply not true. There were a number of people from a variety of professions who recognized the housing bubble. One, Robert Shiller, to answer my own question, is an economist who also predicted the .com collapse[1]. There were also politicians[2] and market participants who predicted a collapse. Some of the latter, like John Paulson, who made billions betting against subprime, didn't publicly promote their beliefs, but others, like Peter Schiff[3], did. [1] [link] [2] [link] [3] [this video]